Re: sort email by date

On Sun, 24 Feb 2008 11:20:20 -0800, droid wrote:

> I'm looking for a script/program to sort large email files by date. I'm
> asking here because of AWK's reputation for pattern matching, but would
> welcome any script/program that can perform this task on either Unix or
> DOS/Windows.

I don't understand the question.  Sorting files can mean producing a
list of filenames is time order.  It can also mean sorting the messages
according to time.  The latter may be meaningless: if they are inboxes,
they are already in order of receipt.  Sorting any collection of email by
time sent is pointless since that field is often simply wrong.

There are also differences in the way various mail clients note the
received time - it's usually on the first line of the saved header, but
the marker and date formtat may vary.  That's for standard POP3 clients -
I don't know about IMAP save format.

It would help if we knew what date you wanted and the format of the
header.  If you post a header, indent every line so it can't be mistaken
for a usenet message header by newsreaders.

-- 

T.E.D. (tdavis@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
) MST (Missouri University of Science and
Technology)
used to be UMR (University of Missouri - Rolla).